What if our democracies didn’t depend on celebrity politics or money-fuelled elections but rather on systems that served the majority of humanity and the planet more widely? That may seem the stuff of dreams for citizens enduring the likes of the US presidential elections yet it isn’t as far fetched as all that. Experiments in governance alternatives are popping up across the planet, their members looking for ways to do democracy better.

Adam Cronkright, co-founder of the Cochabamba, Bolivia group Democracy In Practice, joins me on Democracy Talk to imagine political life beyond the frontiers of elections. DIP has been exploring better ways to do democracy for a couple of years, tackling the frustration many people around the world feel about representative politics.

Adam’s experimentation with random selection in student governments is road testing a technique that first came to light in Ancient Athens and other Greek city states. So what lessons to draw for today’s democracy lovers? Take a listen to find out.

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An ex-Reuters reporter, he relates how getting into and out of conventional journalism opened his eyes to the realities of his chosen career.

On the way he found how mainstream media, including his former employer, were far from being the public watchdogs of power they like to pretend. Quite the opposite – the bulk of their work blinds people to their powerlessness in the face of modern politics, at every layer of government.

Yet this is a hopeful story, including a plan for how people can make their own media and lay claim to their political voices.